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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Posted on 01/23/2003 6:46:57 AM PST by Stand Watch Listen
Immigration officials have discovered dozens of illegal aliens working on the USS John F. Kennedy as the aircraft carrier undergoes renovations at Mayport Naval Station.
Eleven men, all from Mexico, were arrested and charged yesterday with possessing false documentation. The others are still at large.
"We responded to a military concern," said Barbara Gonzalez, spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The investigation began this month after the Navy started a routine review of the status of foreign-born workers hired by the contractors and subcontractors renovating the carrier, said Lt. Leslie Hull-Ryde, a Kennedy spokeswoman.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service asked for help from INS, which identified 65 workers ineligible to work in the United States, according to a court affidavit filed yesterday by INS Special Agent Christopher Note.
Note said when INS and Border Patrol agents went to Mayport last week to locate the illegal workers, they arrested 11 men, all "Mexican citizens illegally in the United States." All are charged with falsifying information on employment forms required of all U.S. workers by providing phony alien numbers, according to Note's affidavit.
"The INS and Border Patrol were unable to locate the remaining individuals," Note testified. Asked if INS is still searching for them, prosecutors and agency officials would say only that the matter is "ongoing." It is unknown what countries the missing workers are from.
In most cases, undocumented aliens are deported to their native countries.
All of those arrested worked for Moran Environmental Recovery, one of five Kennedy contractors with "immigration discrepancies," said Lt. Brad Fagan, a Mayport spokesman. Moran vice president Jay Daniel wouldn't comment on the investigation.
Business owners can be fined for hiring illegal aliens or face criminal prosecution if the hirings were deliberate and flagrant, but typically they aren't sanctioned if the workers present false documents. Federal prosecutors wouldn't say what the case was with Moran, but there was no indication in Note's affidavit that the contractor faced any allegations of wrongdoing.
Prosecutors also wouldn't say whether any of the Kennedy contractors are part of a lengthy federal grand jury probe into money laundering, tax and workers compensation fraud and hiring illegal aliens in the Jacksonville housing construction industry.
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